


Little Boy Blue and the Man in the Moon

by ladivvinatravestia



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Cats Gonna Cat, Gen, Geralt doesn't speak cat very well, author is a crazy cat person, but he's trying his best, let Geralt have soft things, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23136694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladivvinatravestia/pseuds/ladivvinatravestia
Summary: A cat deems Geralt worthy of her affection.
Comments: 68
Kudos: 351





	Little Boy Blue and the Man in the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> When you go to see Tamara Strenger in Oxenfurt in the “Family Matters” quest in Witcher 3, there is an actual Named Cat Character on the screen, and she doesn’t hiss at you. I was immediately suspicious and even used my Witcher Senses to see if she was actually, like, Philippa Eilhart or something. I’m still suspicious, actually, but for this fic we’re going to pretend that the cat is just a perfectly ordinary cat, because Geralt deserves to have nice things.

The homeowner heads off to summon Tamara, leaving Geralt alone with the cat. She’s a pretty grey tabby with yellow eyes. They eye each other suspiciously. Cats do not, as a rule, tend to get along with Geralt. Most cats, in fact, would be hissing and arching their backs at Geralt right now, or streaking away so fast he’d be hard-pressed to track them even with his superhuman senses. This cat, though, stretches her front claws languidly toward him, her tail high in the air, then strolls toward him on the table.

“Mrrp?” she says.

Bemused, Geralt approaches the table and holds out the back of his hand, as he’s seen others do when making the acquaintance of cats. He tries to hunch in a little so maybe his great bulk won’t seem so threatening to the cat.

She sniffs curiously for a moment at the back of his hand, then rubs her cheek against his knuckle. Startled, he pulls his hand back.

“Mrrp!” she says, and gives him a look so judgmental that he actually mutters,

“Sorry,” aloud, before bringing his hand slowly back to where it was. She rubs her cheek against it again, then brushes the rest of her body along his arm until she is far enough into his space that she can butt her head quite insistently against his chest.

“Mew?” she says in a higher register, and head-butts him again.

He raises his hand hesitantly to stroke her between the ears and she pushes her head up into the contact, closing her eyes. People speak to cats, right? What do they say? Can he say the same kinds of things he says to Roach?

“Good girl,” he tries.

“Mrr,” the cat replies, evidently pleased, and pushes her wet little nose into his palm. This leads to him scratching beneath one of her ears, and then her chin, but after a few moments she pulls away and jumps from the table to the nearby bench, meowing expectantly at him. It’s that higher-pitched mewing again, and when Geralt doesn’t immediately seem to understand what she means, the cat impatiently reaches out with one front foot and paws at his thigh. He looks down at her.

“Mew, mew,” the cat pleads. She is now doing a good impression of being the saddest creature who has ever lived.

Geralt doesn’t usually like sitting down in people’s houses uninvited, but he’s also not sure what will happen if the homeowner comes back to the cat telling everyone how she’s been wronged. Besides. He can say that the cat was inviting him to sit down? He takes a seat on the bench and the cat immediately deposits herself on his lap.

“Good girl,” he says again, putting a careful hand on her back. She starts opening and closing her front paws in alternation, a gesture which would surely drive her claws into his thigh if he were not wearing armor. He removes his hand rapidly, assuming it’s her way of saying she doesn’t like his hand there, but she looks up at him reproachfully.

“Mew,” she says sadly.

“Okay, we’ll try this again,” he says.

Satisfied, she puts her head down on her paws and promptly starts purring, a much louder sound than Geralt would have anticipated. He feels a tightness in his throat that this tiny, defenseless creature has chosen to trust him, to give him physical affection, even though he’s good for nothing but violence and death. The cat purrs steadily on, a slight but warm presence in Geralt’s lap. He hopes he won’t need to stand up any time soon; he  _ will _ feel like the monster he’s often assumed to be if he has to evict her before she’s ready to move.

As he’s sitting there, gently scritching between the cat’s ears, the homeowner comes back with a young woman in armor who must be Tamara. The cat tenses and her ears prick forward.

“Is that - are you - is Nibbles letting you  _ pet _ her?” asks Tamara. She glances at the homeowner.

“Yes?” asks Geralt, not certain if this means he has done something wrong.

“She doesn’t like  _ anybody _ !” Tamara says.

“Mew!” objects the cat - Nibbles, apparently.

“Sure she does,” says the homeowner, crouching down in front of Geralt so he can scritch Nibbles’s chin while she is still on his lap. She resumes the alternating claw behavior. “She’s just picky. Got good taste, don’t you, Miss Nibs? But we don’t need you making biscuits on Master Geralt’s good armor, come on, now.”

“Well!” sniffs Tamara, apparently offended.

“Mistress Tamara,” the homeowner says, taking Nibbles into his arms and standing up again, “say what you like, but nobody Nibbles ever liked has ever done me any harm.”

Geralt feels unaccountably bereft after having Nibbles removed from his lap, and stands up to see if he can distract himself.

“Now, I can accompany you while you speak with him if you like,” continues the homeowner, “but I’m certain that Master Geralt isn’t here to force you to return to your father.” He gives Geralt a meaningful look.

Given all of the thoroughly dislikable things Geralt has learned about Philip Strenger, he doesn’t even really want to return to the man himself. “I won’t,” he agrees.

“Fine,” says Tamara. She nods curtly, and puts her hand on the hilt of her dagger. The homeowner leaves with Nibbles, and the atmosphere of the room abruptly returns to the space between distrust and brisk business negotiation that Geralt is more used to. “Whatever it is that you have to say to me, get it over with and begone.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> visit me on [tumblr](https://ladivvinatravestia.tumblr.com) where my ask box is always open!


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